


What The Water Gave Me

by ateverbti



Series: Rootless Tree [1]
Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Angst, Drowning, Emotional Hurt, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Minor Character Death, Pre-Slash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-10
Updated: 2013-02-10
Packaged: 2017-11-28 21:06:20
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,298
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/678888
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ateverbti/pseuds/ateverbti
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They say when a man dies, he sees a bright light. Brain calms the body deprived of oxygen. It sinks to the bottom slowly, not even feeling the impact. Eyes shut and hands  no longer look for something to grasp. Don't look for non-existent steps of a ladder. Everything comes to rest. There is nothing around.</p><p>It’s a lie.</p><p>Prequel for <a href="http://archiveofourown.org/works/686887">Follow You Down To The Red Oak Tree</a></p>
            </blockquote>





	What The Water Gave Me

**Author's Note:**

> I want to thank my beta readers: Andae and FireWithFire. Also want to thanks Andae for translation. The title of the fic comes from the song by Florence&The Machine "What the water gave me".

Pain came first. Burning, rending lungs apart. Then there was nothing. Only water around him. Cold and dark, thick as tar. In the last attempt, he tried to grab something, but he couldn’t bend his fingers. Emptiness around. They say when a man dies, he sees a bright light. Brain calms the body deprived of oxygen. It sinks to the bottom slowly, not even feeling the impact. Eyes shut and hands  no longer look for something to grasp. Don't look for non-existent steps of a ladder. Everything comes to rest. There is nothing around.

It’s a lie.

The pain doesn’t go away, fear crawls under the skin, wraps him whole. It takes everything else. Panic, when the thought of death suddenly becomes reality. Someone shouts above the surface, more and more distant, muffled by the sound of water, which wraps him in horror and cold. It bursts into reality, takes it all. There is nothing more but desperate attempts to breathe some air, but this is the fight that no one can win. The pain never goes away, there is no peace. Drowning isn't romantic, poetic or beautiful. It’s a horrible death that deprives a man of all that he has left. It leaves him alone with demons that have always been there.

All alone with the truth.

He heard Scott shouting in the distance. Scott, that stupid teenager who had never been able to understand what he got. What immense power he held in his hands. Strength which allows him to do anything. But he had chosen to escape. Coward. He clung to his humanity like an anchor not to go down, to become a beast. Because wolves are beasts. Derek had known it from the first time he had opened his eyes. From the time he tasted blood, tore skin to shreds, broke bones, ripped muscles. He was a beast himself, a one which could fight and kill. But Scott McCall wanted to be something more, something better, different. If only Derek could breathe now, he would start to laugh. There had never been anything else. Only him and a wolf. Anyone who received a gift had to understand that. The wolf and bloodlust, lack of control, the beast. Scott was stupid, but he wasn’t the one drowning. Perhaps, maybe the kid was right.

He put his hands in front of him, trying to catch a non-existent branch, or a step of the ladder,  but he only felt silky water between his wide fingers he could no longer force to move. He was afraid to close his eyes, knew that the moment he did would be his last. Derek didn’t want to die. Not yet. He couldn’t leave them alone. The gang of teenagers who would kill themselves tripping over their own feet. Without him, Erica would have died, Isaac as well, beaten to death by his father. Boyd would have never understood what loyalty was. Without him, they wouldn’t manage. He had to go back.

His lungs were burning. Derek could endure pain like he had been taught when he was a child. Pain was a companion, a friend, a reminder of the fact that he was still alive, that the he wasn’t a beast. His father told him that every day, and Derek listened. The first broken bone. He was only six years old, he didn’t want to cry, knowing that if he did, it would only get worse. He would be weak. The weakest of them all. He curled up under a tree, in the middle of the forest and wailed mournfully into the night. His first failure. Derek never forgot the looks of his mother and sister. Compassion. But he saw only contempt there. He was weak, and that he was only six never mattered. He made the last attempt not to breathe. He didn’t want to die yet.

When he was under the water, he kept his eyes open. He didn’t dare to close them. Not when he saw only her under his eyelids. Soft and smooth lips, stretched into a smile. Eyes darkening with every passing minute. Perfect body. He remembered every detail, no matter how much he tried to get her out of his head. The image of Kate Argent was burned into his eyelids, just like the smoking ruins that had been his home long ago. He loved her with a stupid, childish love. He loved her hands that roamed over his body. He loved her lips when she kissed him. Her voice, when he listened to the beautiful words of love. They spent whole days together. He brought her flowers, took her to the cinema, to the forest. He did everything for her, fulfilled her every wish, every request. She was always cold, a little distant, but Derek believed that if he tried more, Kate would love him as much as he loved her. He was happy that she just looked at him at the first day. A lone, skinny teenager, who was trying to find his place in the world. It took just a smile for him to be wrapped around her little finger. Kate was perfect, a little older than him, wiser. Smarter. She burned his whole family, leaving him only with his older sister and his uncle, who was put in a hospital with several burns. Even then he loved her. And he hated himself while still missing her hands.

She took everything he loved, in return leaving a pile of burnt wood and bones. Gave him pain, much worse than one he felt during a full moon. She gave him a gift of suffering, which slowly burned every cell in his body like fire. All of his life, so perfect, drowned in chaos. Eternal escape and guilt that would never go away. Every time Derek closed his eyes, he saw her smile, but now it was no longer beautiful, delicate. He saw her pouring gasoline around the house, throwing a match, even though he was never there, at the crime scene. Every day he prayed to turn back time. Not to stop her, but to burn with the others. But none of the gods, there were so many of them, didn’t respond to his pleas. But now, he was afraid to die. Just like Laura, who tried to fix his mistakes. He was afraid of falling into dementia, as Peter did, who found some peace in his madness. He wanted to hate more. Derek closed his fingers for the last time, still trying to get to the surface.

* * *

“He's not waking up, do something.” Stiles was hovering nervously around a metal bet at the vet's clinic. “Why isn't he waking up?”

“His organism is exhausted.” Deaton was shuffling through the cabinets. “The bullet he was hit with contained silver and wolfsbane, it's gonna take time.”

“The last time he was hit with something like that, but he was conscious then, and those black lines kept disappearing. Damn, do something!”

“Stiles, calm down.” Scott patted his shoulder. “Everything's gonna be okay.”

“Does he look okay?” Stiles brushed off his friend's hand. “Derek, wake up! Derek!”

* * *

It was getting colder, he struggled, but in vain. He kept falling down. He heard screaming again, less clear by the minute. Someone was calling his name. He didn't want to listen. In the dark he was safer, and so were the monsters stuck in his head. He didn't need light, he didn't need air anymore. Only the silver moon, cold water and him. An ideal silence, his penance he'd be doing until everything would be paid for. Maybe death would be a good price, a right price. He loosened his fingers. It made no sense to look for something to hold on, it was easier to keep falling, wrap himself in icy emptiness. But this voice, one he didn't recognize, was so persistent, too loud. Sharp like a silver knife, and kept saying his name, kept shouting his name. He heard regret, fear. He listened for disdain, it had to be there. All Derek Hale deserved was disdain and mockery. But he didn't hear the slightest trace. He shook his head, that was all he had left energy for. He didn't open his mouth yet, maybe if he did, it would be quiet at last. _Derek, wake up._ He must have imagined it. After all he wasn't dreaming. He was just drowning. Getting to the surface, saving his life, was less and less important.

He kept lying to himself since the beginning. He wasn't cut to be an alpha, he shouldn't have even tried to build his own pack. Anyone would be better than him, even Peter. Especially Peter. In spite of his madness he could deal with everything. He cheated death. He even managed something that Derek never could, he forgot. Peter Hale lived for revenge that was in every cell in his body, in every drop of blood, and when it was done he just caught a second breath. He let the guilt go and vanish. He forgot the fire, he forgot murdering Laura, forgot Kate and the hunters. He became someone else. He reached his goal and simply started living. Kept his head high, as if there was no guilt on his shoulders. Maybe Derek's uncle was right. To die to be reborn, start anew. He could have done that. It would be enough to open his mouth, take a deep breath, let the water flood his lungs. But Derek Hale hated himself too much to let the pain fade.

He was no one. A last thought that came to his head. He was no one, could do nothing, was good for nothing. He was a dead parents' last son, dead sister's brother. A madman's nephew. If not for him, everything would be easier. Jackson wouldn't have to run, Lydia would never be attacked by Peter. Stiles would never have to lie. Scott could have been still a lovestruck teenager. His family would have never burn in the fire. If only he'd been never born, never existed. Every breath reminded him about how he destroyed everyone's lives. He couldn't be like them. He couldn't trust, he couldn't love, he didn't want to be loyal anymore. He never wanted power, and when he'd got it, he choked on it, like now he could have choke on icy thick water, black like tar. He wanted absolution, reassurance that everything would be all right. That when he'd be gone, they'd be happy at last. That they'd live. But he kept hearing this single voice, getting weaker and further away.

* * *

“Wake up, you have to wake up.” Stiles clung to the werewolf's hand.

“Stiles, let him go.” Scott grabbed his friend's shoulder and pulled. “It's over. Let him go.”

“No!” He tore out of Scott's grasp and sat back at a chair at the bedside. “Get up! Damn you, get up!” He bit his lips, almost drew blood. “Derek, please,” he said very quietly.

* * *

Laura was dead, torn in half. Her lips still moved in silent prayer, exactly like a puppet in a puppet show, pulled on strings. Laura was dead, called for him. She crawled toward him, teeth bared. Kate was dead. She smiled sweetly, playing with a lighter. She reeked of gasoline. His father was ash, his mother a pile of bones bleached in the sun. Everything that was ever important, rotted. A smell of death and decay. They called for him, nodded their heads, reached out for him while he floated in the water. Slick fingers grabbed his pants, rotting fingernails dug into body. Dead bodies. Everything he left behind was dead bodies, filth and suffering. He opened his mouth slowly.

There was no bright light, no revelation. First swallow of water hurt more than holding his breath. There was no peace, just sorrow, more sorrow. Water was salty like tears. A smell of gasoline, of burning fiber. A taste of flesh and blood on his tongue. Everyone was gone, he was alone again. Those who called for him, disappeared. In death everyone is alone, in death everyone is equal. But he kept falling, kept drowning. Kept living. Another swallow caused convulsions. He shook, not understanding what was happening. He just wanted to die, but maybe he couldn't do it, either. It kept getting darker and colder. He felt a slight tug. Maybe Laura grabbed him again, or his mother, to pull him down and lie him down on the bottom, among them, where from between blue lips small fish were swimming out, flatworms, maggots. Where all he could smell would be loneliness. But someone kept pulling him up, where there was brighter, warmer. Still a salty taste in his mouth, mixed with blood's metallic aftertaste.

Third breath didn't hurt. The body must have surrendered, stopped fighting.

 _No, no, no. Derek, don't do that to us. Wake up, now. Wake up!_ He knew the voice. He knew it since the beginning. It restored him to his senses for a moment. He struggled. For the last time he reached out and tightened his fingers in the soft fabric. He kept holding, dug his claws into soft flesh. Warm blood trickled over his hands. Someone pulled him up, over the surface. He opened his mouth for the last time. This time he caught his breath.

* * *

“Derek!”

The same voice again. He loosened his grip and opened his eyes. Before he could react, Stiles embraced him hard, hid his face into a crook of his neck.

“Don't do this,” he murmured. “Never do this again.”

“Stiles?”

“Never.”

He held his palm up to see, it was covered in blood. He should have pushed the boy away, escape. Die. He put a hand on Stiles's back instead, embraced him back.

 


End file.
